Analysis of First Love
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton 1808 (Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan London) – 1877 (London)
YES, I know that you once were my lover,
But that sort of thing has an end,
And though love and its transports are over,
You know you can still be--my friend:
I was young, too, and foolish, remember;
(Did you ever hear John Hardy sing?)
It was then, the fifteenth of November,
And this is the end of the spring!
You complain that you are not well-treated
By my suddenly altering so;
Can I help it?--you're very conceited,
If you think yourself equal to Joe.
Don't kneel at my feet, I implore you;
Don't write on the drawings you bring;
Don't ask me to say, 'I adore you,'
For, indeed, it is now no such thing.
I confess, when at Bognor we parted,
I swore that I worshipped you then--
That I was a maid broken-hearted,
And you the most charming of men.
I confess, when I read your first letter,
I blotted your name with a tear--
But, oh! I was young--knew no better,
Could I tell that I'd meet Hardy here?
How dull you are grown! how you worry,
Repeating my vows to be true--
If I said so, I told you a story,
For I love Hardy better than you!
Yes! my fond heart has fixed on another,
(I sigh so whenever he's gone,)
I shall always love you--as a brother,
But my heart is John Hardy's alone.
Scheme | ABABACAC DEDEFCFC DGDGAXAX HFHFAXAX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110110 11111111 0110101110 11111111 1111010010 111011101 1110011010 01101101 1011111110 111001001 1111110010 111011011 111111011 11101011 111111011 101111111 101111110 11111011 111011010 01011011 1011111110 11011101 111111110 111111101 111111110 01011111 1111111010 111101011 1111111010 11101011 111111010 111111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,198 |
Words | 238 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 221 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 58 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 101 Views
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"First Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4734/first-love>.
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